The "problem" with LAV's

Is that everyone is stubborn and only want to use their main build in a match.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the majority of players view LAVs as an issue. Some simply say its an issue, some say it's a game breaking issue. But the majority of us agree it's an issue.

We need to address what the issue is, is it that we have high HP meaning we cannot be killed as quickly as before or is it that the LAVs are better than every single vehicle in the game due to its ability to take damage and kill, a lot. From experience I can tell you the LAV is great for running people over, 9 times out of 10 I run a LAV and I run people over, a lot, and I always profit from my LAVs.

So assuming that the issue is not so much the HP, but the damage it can deal as well, perhaps we should look at not nerfing the LAV (The shock, the horror, I know) but offering solutions to stopping players from just running others over. Now before AVers come crying because I do not suggest a HP nerf to the LAV nor give them their ability to one shot a LAV with a AV grenade, and before Vehicle players start demanding my head because I am suggesting something that will weaken their ability to run people over, read everything and understand I'm not looking at the game for its current state, but more its future state and the fact it is a sandbox, where different tactics should be applied and should be viable.

The LAV needs to be strong and fast, but it needs to suffer consequences for running people over, so I want to look at taking damage to the LAV based on the person that you have run over's HP. The ability to run people over will still be in the game, and the occasional kill from the LAVs will be there, but you will take damage from doing it and this, I believe, is a step towards the right direction.

For example, Vehicle Players, like it or not but the Heavy is meant to be an infantry unit that can stand against us yet can be crushed as easily as a scout. I ran into 4 heavies earlier, crushed them all together in a blob and carried on down the road, broken. What if, my LAV did kill two of them, but died as a result? I think that would be far fairer. Right now, I see a Forge Gunner and I think "Oh he's going to shoot me" and then I proceed to run him over, what a scrub. But perhaps if I saw the forge gunner and though "Oh ****, that Forge might hit me before I hit him and I only have 3000hp, and the heavy might have 1200ehp, I might die". Of course, unless its a powerful forge I won't die from hitting him alone.

AVers, like it or not, but you need to run as a group to take on vehicles, but with this suggestion I give you even more of a benefit for running in a group. Sure the solo AVer can do some damage, but as above, I have 3000 HP, lets say that heavy has a forge dealing 1400 damage, and because I hit the heavy, I take 1200 damage. 2600HP is gone, I survive, to run over another. What if there had been a logibro right behind that heavy? he had 600 HP, 3200HP, I blew up.

What if, you saw a Vehicle in the city, and decided to place 4 heavies infront of it, AV at the ready? As of now, I will run you over and laugh, but with this? You just created a brick wall that I just shat myself at the sight of, because I can't go that way without dying, and because I've turned around, I've just wasted a few seconds, enough time to fire another volley.

But these are not the only reasons I give. By nerfing the LAV it becomes merely a transport vehicle with no additional uses, a throwaway vehicle that nobody wants to skill into. Let's first look at Squad support. the LLAVs have reps to support infantry, how does it support a vehicle if someone fires a forge from a distance and instantly dies? It doesn't, it's dead and useless, nobody will use these to support their squads.

What about E-war? Using scanners and blocking them, LAVs are the most logical choice (imo) to use when CCP eventually rolls out e-war, but nerf them and they'll be as useless as dropships are, nobody wants to use a vehicle that gets one shotted and costs them a load of cash.

We need to tweak and balance yes, start off with raw HP, run over a heavy with 1 armor left yet has a max hp of 1200? Take 1200, if it works well keep it, if its too strong, rebalance and tweak. Allow HAVs to do damage and take damage when driving into people, makes 4 Forge Gunners standing in front of a HAV a fearful thing indeed, but let's HAVs kill you if you get too close. This also solves the Dropship issues with them crushing people, allows you to give them more health but slamming on top of you will not only damage themselves from the ground, but from you aswell.

This, seems like a logical and straight forward solution to some issues we are facing, should you have criticisms on this post, respond and I will address asap, I don't want to see another nerf to vehicles, but I don't want to see them ruining the game.

What I gathered from your post - You want to keep LAV's as they are, but when they run over a heavy they take damage. So you want to still be able to run over soldiers individually, but your "solution" is to make it so that if multiple heavies stand together, you might second guess running them over?

Still broken.

Why not just remove the LAV's ability to 1-shot anyone (unless they're already softened up). Have a collision with an LAV cause 100 damage to armor for both soldier and LAV - problem solved. Soldier lives to fight another day, Domination mode doesn't become one giant Death Race 2000 (the orginal, not the bullcrap new one), and LAV's maintain their intended purpose as a support vehicle.

Thanks for reading guy!

Another thing on the to-do list is to be able to tune how collision damage is handled when hitting infantry with a vehicle. Currently, collision damage is based on scaling physics impulses to hp damage values (while using a minimum threshold). When a vehicle runs into a wall or another vehicle, this works well enough, but hitting a infantry in terms of physics really isn't a big impact.

However, because there's very little impact, the vehicle will take next to no damage and the result is this LAV roadkill epidemic we're having where running over people seems to be a very popular offensive tactic. Running over people is just fine, but we may want to adjust the risk/reward for doing so.

Shayz - Thanks for the feedback. To respond to your concern: This is in-game physics, not perceived physics. A mesh that looks like it is armor, and has a lot of hitpoints on it has no bearing on how the physics system of a game works. The values that matter in this sort of a case is the volume of both meshes colliding, the density values of the physics materials on each mesh, the stiffness and material damage multipliers of each object colliding, and the damage threshold of the object whose HP you are looking at.

actually that is the problem because most main build are vehicles or infantry, not AV. trust me this is it. and I am full hearted against LAVs taking full hp damage from a run over. maybe 1/4 max. heavies by themselves should not be a form AV that's like HAV should only die from AV and never from HAVs.

actually that is the problem because most main build are vehicles or infantry, not AV. trust me this is it. and I am full hearted against LAVs taking full hp damage from a run over. maybe 1/4 max. heavies by themselves should not be a form AV that's like HAV should only die from AV and never from HAVs.

https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=847413#post847413





That may be of interest to you.

realism does not need to be completely in games so this point is not valid because there are plenty of other things not realistic in the game. I personally have no problems with the LAVs when I run about sniping or toying with the plasma cannon or the scrambler rifle. I don't stand in the middle of the road as a heavy(which I sometimes play), I don't stare the vehicle down with AV waiting to be crush and then go WTF I died. I think out of all the deaths I have had less then 1/10 were from some kind of vehicle to include HAV and DS on top of LAVs. so issue, not really.

As the guy running people over I will tell you it is not the lack of AV, I promise.

Like I said, tweak and rebalance, the LAV shouldn't be the vehicle you use only to run people over, the majority of people that dislike the idea are the people that just run others over repeatedly. It would be a form of defense through TEAMWORK, something we vehicle players constantly preach to AVers and yet do not give them other abilities to work together as a team. It is nothing like a HAV only dying from AV and never from HAVs, that's a ridiculous analogy.

1/4 max would be pitiful. It wouldn't make me any more wary of other players. I'd continue running people over until CCP finally decides to nerf my HP which will be the end of LAVs ever being a useful vehicle on the battlefield.

dude I have Charybdis and yes it has been destroyed by AV, rarely but has happen. I used to drive LLAV before uprising and I get the same amount of kills. its not the vehicle its the players ability to adopt and change to new tactics. my LLAV went though multiple nerfs when I overused it which was annoying but didn't really change anything till people realize they needed AV on their team and had people spec into it which forced me to use different tactics which I did and guess what when people get over themselves and realize that proper AV is needed its going to be hey I used a MLT SL on LLAV and it didn't die from the first hit nerf it so I can and CCP which tweak it slightly and then it'll die down a bit and come back later.

it takes awhile for people to spec into AV because of the cap so it will take awhile before any real AV comes out of the woodwork.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the majority of players view LAVs as an issue. Some simply say its an issue, some say it's a game breaking issue. But the majority of us agree it's an issue.

We need to address what the issue is, is it that we have high HP meaning we cannot be killed as quickly as before or is it that the LAVs are better than every single vehicle in the game due to its ability to take damage and kill, a lot. From experience I can tell you the LAV is great for running people over, 9 times out of 10 I run a LAV and I run people over, a lot, and I always profit from my LAVs.

So assuming that the issue is not so much the HP, but the damage it can deal as well, perhaps we should look at not nerfing the LAV (The shock, the horror, I know) but offering solutions to stopping players from just running others over. Now before AVers come crying because I do not suggest a HP nerf to the LAV nor give them their ability to one shot a LAV with a AV grenade, and before Vehicle players start demanding my head because I am suggesting something that will weaken their ability to run people over, read everything and understand I'm not looking at the game for its current state, but more its future state and the fact it is a sandbox, where different tactics should be applied and should be viable.

The LAV needs to be strong and fast, but it needs to suffer consequences for running people over, so I want to look at taking damage to the LAV based on the person that you have run over's HP. The ability to run people over will still be in the game, and the occasional kill from the LAVs will be there, but you will take damage from doing it and this, I believe, is a step towards the right direction.

For example, Vehicle Players, like it or not but the Heavy is meant to be an infantry unit that can stand against us yet can be crushed as easily as a scout. I ran into 4 heavies earlier, crushed them all together in a blob and carried on down the road, broken. What if, my LAV did kill two of them, but died as a result? I think that would be far fairer. Right now, I see a Forge Gunner and I think "Oh he's going to shoot me" and then I proceed to run him over, what a scrub. But perhaps if I saw the forge gunner and though "Oh ****, that Forge might hit me before I hit him and I only have 3000hp, and the heavy might have 1200ehp, I might die". Of course, unless its a powerful forge I won't die from hitting him alone.

AVers, like it or not, but you need to run as a group to take on vehicles, but with this suggestion I give you even more of a benefit for running in a group. Sure the solo AVer can do some damage, but as above, I have 3000 HP, lets say that heavy has a forge dealing 1400 damage, and because I hit the heavy, I take 1200 damage. 2600HP is gone, I survive, to run over another. What if there had been a logibro right behind that heavy? he had 600 HP, 3200HP, I blew up.

What if, you saw a Vehicle in the city, and decided to place 4 heavies infront of it, AV at the ready? As of now, I will run you over and laugh, but with this? You just created a brick wall that I just shat myself at the sight of, because I can't go that way without dying, and because I've turned around, I've just wasted a few seconds, enough time to fire another volley.

But these are not the only reasons I give. By nerfing the LAV it becomes merely a transport vehicle with no additional uses, a throwaway vehicle that nobody wants to skill into. Let's first look at Squad support. the LLAVs have reps to support infantry, how does it support a vehicle if someone fires a forge from a distance and instantly dies? It doesn't, it's dead and useless, nobody will use these to support their squads.

What about E-war? Using scanners and blocking them, LAVs are the most logical choice (imo) to use when CCP eventually rolls out e-war, but nerf them and they'll be as useless as dropships are, nobody wants to use a vehicle that gets one shotted and costs them a load of cash.

We need to tweak and balance yes, start off with raw HP, run over a heavy with 1 armor left yet has a max hp of 1200? Take 1200, if it works well keep it, if its too strong, rebalance and tweak. Allow HAVs to do damage and take damage when driving into people, makes 4 Forge Gunners standing in front of a HAV a fearful thing indeed, but let's HAVs kill you if you get too close. This also solves the Dropship issues with them crushing people, allows you to give them more health but slamming on top of you will not only damage themselves from the ground, but from you aswell.

This, seems like a logical and straight forward solution to some issues we are facing, should you have criticisms on this post, respond and I will address asap, I don't want to see another nerf to vehicles, but I don't want to see them ruining the game.